With the upcoming new Steam Frame hardware from Valve, they want to get as many games as possible running - and there's multiple ways for developers to do it.
It’s quite the experience, I started with the Index.
Unless Valve releases a new game with the frame I’d recommend trying Half Life: Alyx first, it’s a very AAA-like experience and does a great job at demonstrating all of the capabilities of VR on top of being beautiful.
Once you’ve tried that Beat Sabre is a blast (and quite a bit of exercise). Superhot is probably the best selling VR game, you can live out your Keanu Reeves fantasy of being both John Wick and Neo. The art style ensures that you will have super smooth framerate.
VTOL VR is a flight-sim and a masterful example of creating a game using VR-only controls. It’s for you if you like the idea of a game like DCS but don’t want to spend 80 hours studying a textbook before you can take off (not to mention weapon systems and tactics) and don’t want to spend a bunch of money on specialized control hardware. It is developed by one guy but allows custom maps so the community has created some interesting missions. There’s even 2-seat aircraft (like an attack helicopter, training aircraft and electronics warfare plane).
Iron Rebellion looks like a promising team-based mech game using a similar VR-only control philosophy. It’s in active development and the developers are very responsive to the community (it helps that the VR gaming community is small). It’s hard to tell if it is going to be more Mechwarrior-like or more like Armored Core (though it is leaning towards the former)
Blade and Sorcery and Boneworks/Bonelab are physics playgrounds. Blade and Sorcery is more like a fantasy ARPG while Bonelabs is more sci-fi-esq. Bone* has mod support so there is a lot of user created content (mostly crap, but there are some gems)
VR Chat is pretty self-explanatory. It’s not my thing but it is popular in some demographics.
A Fisherman’s Tale is essentially an escape room that would be impossible to create without VR.
habie147 is a pretty popular creator that focuses on VR, I usually check his videos out before I try a game.
spoiler
There’s also VR porn, if you see your Steam friends playing ‘DeoVR Video Player’ they’re probably looking at sexlikereal porn.
Thank you for this! HL:Alyx is 100% my first stop and is already in my library. I almost bought the Index just for Alyx.
I am really excited to try all that VR has to offer, but I think as this article alludes to, the options for ways to play my whole library on the frame was what pushed me over the edge. Even if I love VR games, I fully expect to spend more hours playing my other non-VR games on this.
Aesthetically, this is also the closest to the “headset” experience that is in my head from growing up reading Neal Stephenson and William Gibson. It is certainly the first headset I have seen that feels like an actual computer on my head, both in terms of the tech itself and Valve’s approach to ownership.
Oh man, you’re going to get to experience it in an even better format. Index is great, 144hz looks amazing and the tracking is perfect. But the resolution is low so you get the ‘screen door effect’ and because of the lens configuration you’re getting first and second order reflections which can cause bright objects to have a glow around them and you don’t have HDR.
There are several applications that let you interact with the computer as if you had monitors. You can make the monitors are as large or small as you want them and placed where you choose. You can also just bind them to your head so they’re always in a fixed position in front of your face. I use the virtual desktop because it’s often less hassle than removing the headset and walking to my desktop. Eventually we’ll have displays with a higher DPI than you can perceive and then you could have your house wallpapered in virtual monitors if you wanted.
Another neat VR-specific thing is an overlay. Much like how Steam has an overlay where you can press a button in any game and access Steam, there are applications that perform a similar task in VR (you designate your overlay application in the Steam VR settings). I’ve been using XSOverlay, you can think of it like a holographic wristwatch/smartphone. There are good examples on YT if you’d like to see it.
In any game, when you have the overlay enabled, if you turn your arm an (adjustable) amount like looking at your watch, the overlay will appear. You can add all kinds of things to the overlay, including capturing specific applications. I often have Signal on my overlay so if I get a message I don’t need my phone or to pause the game and switch to a virtual desktop, I just look at my wrist and a Signal window is attached to it which I can interact with by pointing and clicking with the other controller. I use a SteamInput chord (holding multiple buttons) to activate a speech-to-text application, but you can also use a standard virtual keyboard for input.
It was something that I didn’t even know existed for several months, but it’s a huge QOL upgrade and it only costs $10.
Stephenson and Gibson are great, I’ve read everything that Stephenson has written and I’m only a few books from finishing Gibson. We’re not quite at Diamond Age levels of tech, but I can see the parallels.
The only other headset I tried was the Quest 2, it worked with PCVR via a USB-C connection and has an onboard computer so it can be used completely untethered (at the time you were limited to the Quest2 apps in the Meta store, there was no wireless PCVR but there may be now).
It uses inside out tracking, so you don’t need any special equipment in order to use it. The downside is that it couldn’t track your hands behind your back (was never a problem on anything I played) and sometimes the controller tracking would misjudge the location a tiny bit. None of these were every a problem in any game, the deviation was very slight and fixed itself in under a second usually.
The screen is 120hz, and the resolution is actually higher than the Index, slightly. I could notice the difference in the screen door effect. Better brightness and color made the visual quality better than the Index and the lens setup seemed to mitigate the glow effect much better.
It looks like ebay has the top end 256GB model for under $200. Just make sure you get 1. The ability to send power over the USB-C, like via a powered dock, otherwise the headset runs on battery while plugged into USB and I have little tube batteries and 2 coiled USB-C cables to keep the controllers powered for longer than I could possibly use them (around 30 hours total at full charge), the standard battery lasts around 2 hours (probably less if it is used). I’m not sure that the battery can be replaced but any battery is replaceable if you don’t mind using a soldering gun.
It’s quite the experience, I started with the Index.
Unless Valve releases a new game with the frame I’d recommend trying Half Life: Alyx first, it’s a very AAA-like experience and does a great job at demonstrating all of the capabilities of VR on top of being beautiful.
Once you’ve tried that Beat Sabre is a blast (and quite a bit of exercise). Superhot is probably the best selling VR game, you can live out your Keanu Reeves fantasy of being both John Wick and Neo. The art style ensures that you will have super smooth framerate.
VTOL VR is a flight-sim and a masterful example of creating a game using VR-only controls. It’s for you if you like the idea of a game like DCS but don’t want to spend 80 hours studying a textbook before you can take off (not to mention weapon systems and tactics) and don’t want to spend a bunch of money on specialized control hardware. It is developed by one guy but allows custom maps so the community has created some interesting missions. There’s even 2-seat aircraft (like an attack helicopter, training aircraft and electronics warfare plane).
Iron Rebellion looks like a promising team-based mech game using a similar VR-only control philosophy. It’s in active development and the developers are very responsive to the community (it helps that the VR gaming community is small). It’s hard to tell if it is going to be more Mechwarrior-like or more like Armored Core (though it is leaning towards the former)
Blade and Sorcery and Boneworks/Bonelab are physics playgrounds. Blade and Sorcery is more like a fantasy ARPG while Bonelabs is more sci-fi-esq. Bone* has mod support so there is a lot of user created content (mostly crap, but there are some gems)
VR Chat is pretty self-explanatory. It’s not my thing but it is popular in some demographics.
A Fisherman’s Tale is essentially an escape room that would be impossible to create without VR.
habie147 is a pretty popular creator that focuses on VR, I usually check his videos out before I try a game.
spoiler
There’s also VR porn, if you see your Steam friends playing ‘DeoVR Video Player’ they’re probably looking at sexlikereal porn.
Thank you for this! HL:Alyx is 100% my first stop and is already in my library. I almost bought the Index just for Alyx.
I am really excited to try all that VR has to offer, but I think as this article alludes to, the options for ways to play my whole library on the frame was what pushed me over the edge. Even if I love VR games, I fully expect to spend more hours playing my other non-VR games on this.
Aesthetically, this is also the closest to the “headset” experience that is in my head from growing up reading Neal Stephenson and William Gibson. It is certainly the first headset I have seen that feels like an actual computer on my head, both in terms of the tech itself and Valve’s approach to ownership.
I’m quivering in anticipation, to be honest.
Oh man, you’re going to get to experience it in an even better format. Index is great, 144hz looks amazing and the tracking is perfect. But the resolution is low so you get the ‘screen door effect’ and because of the lens configuration you’re getting first and second order reflections which can cause bright objects to have a glow around them and you don’t have HDR.
There are several applications that let you interact with the computer as if you had monitors. You can make the monitors are as large or small as you want them and placed where you choose. You can also just bind them to your head so they’re always in a fixed position in front of your face. I use the virtual desktop because it’s often less hassle than removing the headset and walking to my desktop. Eventually we’ll have displays with a higher DPI than you can perceive and then you could have your house wallpapered in virtual monitors if you wanted.
Another neat VR-specific thing is an overlay. Much like how Steam has an overlay where you can press a button in any game and access Steam, there are applications that perform a similar task in VR (you designate your overlay application in the Steam VR settings). I’ve been using XSOverlay, you can think of it like a holographic wristwatch/smartphone. There are good examples on YT if you’d like to see it.
In any game, when you have the overlay enabled, if you turn your arm an (adjustable) amount like looking at your watch, the overlay will appear. You can add all kinds of things to the overlay, including capturing specific applications. I often have Signal on my overlay so if I get a message I don’t need my phone or to pause the game and switch to a virtual desktop, I just look at my wrist and a Signal window is attached to it which I can interact with by pointing and clicking with the other controller. I use a SteamInput chord (holding multiple buttons) to activate a speech-to-text application, but you can also use a standard virtual keyboard for input.
It was something that I didn’t even know existed for several months, but it’s a huge QOL upgrade and it only costs $10.
Stephenson and Gibson are great, I’ve read everything that Stephenson has written and I’m only a few books from finishing Gibson. We’re not quite at Diamond Age levels of tech, but I can see the parallels.
Are there any acceptable used headsets under $200? I also have an older-ish rig so I’m going to need to run games at older settings or older games.
There’s a bunch of headsets under $200 I just don’t know if any don’t suck.
The only other headset I tried was the Quest 2, it worked with PCVR via a USB-C connection and has an onboard computer so it can be used completely untethered (at the time you were limited to the Quest2 apps in the Meta store, there was no wireless PCVR but there may be now).
It uses inside out tracking, so you don’t need any special equipment in order to use it. The downside is that it couldn’t track your hands behind your back (was never a problem on anything I played) and sometimes the controller tracking would misjudge the location a tiny bit. None of these were every a problem in any game, the deviation was very slight and fixed itself in under a second usually.
The screen is 120hz, and the resolution is actually higher than the Index, slightly. I could notice the difference in the screen door effect. Better brightness and color made the visual quality better than the Index and the lens setup seemed to mitigate the glow effect much better.
It looks like ebay has the top end 256GB model for under $200. Just make sure you get 1. The ability to send power over the USB-C, like via a powered dock, otherwise the headset runs on battery while plugged into USB and I have little tube batteries and 2 coiled USB-C cables to keep the controllers powered for longer than I could possibly use them (around 30 hours total at full charge), the standard battery lasts around 2 hours (probably less if it is used). I’m not sure that the battery can be replaced but any battery is replaceable if you don’t mind using a soldering gun.